Mirrored sentiments
by TheLockPickingVictorian
Summary: Nine out of ten times, a sleepy Oliver Queen is akin to an oversized teddy bear, one who loves the lazy mornings after a night of jumping off roof tops But then again, those one out of ten times exist too, which leads to all sorts of sulking for Felicity.


He'd never really cared about it all that much before but nowadays, Oliver Queen had a new favourite time of day.

And surprisingly, that time of day turned out to be early mornings.

He knew for a face that that was because of the way he woke up, with his gorgeous, tiny IT girl curled around him like a blonde Koala, completely aware of the damage he could do to her, just by shifting his weight wrong, but trusting him anyway. She's always been perfect but, honestly, the way she looked at him when she woke up, all big smiles and tired eyes had Oliver almost certain that he fell just the tiniest bit more in love with her every time. It had to stop sooner or later though, because he honestly did not understand how he could love her even more than he already did.

"Oliver." She grumbled into his clavicle one chilly spring morning, her phone screaming out her alarm on the table behind her. "Why'da look so grumpy?"

"Well, good morning to you too, beautiful." He sighed against her hair, kissing her temple lightly. She batted at his head.

"I'm half asleep Oliver. I'm not beautiful like this." She protested, shuffling up slowly so that her back rested against the headboard of his bed, clutching the duvet to her chest as she reached over to turn off her alarm and she turned to regard him as seriously as she could given the hour and her lack of glasses. "Did you have another nightmare? Because I'd totally understand if you did, given what you've been through."

"No, 'Lisity, no nightmares tonight." He sat up with her, sliding fingers against her arm as he did. He was still unsure as to whether he had some subconscious control over his nightmares or whether she kept them away, but he'd never had the dreams when she was in his bed, or when he was in hers, come to think of it. "I was just thinking."

"Well that's dangerous!" She laughed, her voice gaining a slightly nasally quality and he paused for a second to wonder what she was quoting from. But her shoulders lost the tension they'd had gained, and he threaded his fingers through hers once she relaxed again. "What about?"

"Thea." He sighed, tracing the delicate bones under the skin of her hand. "And you."

"Thea and me." She repeated, the last of the sleep in her eyes slipping away with one last blink. "Why? Thea and I don't even fit in the same category, Oliver. She's the Queen family heiress and I'm the IT geek from Vegas. Hell, Thea and I don't even fit in the same world."

"You and Thea are the two most important people to me. The two of you _are_ my world, Felicity. And I couldn't keep you safe when it was just you that I had to worry about, and now I'm… любовь моя, How can I protect can I protect you both if I couldn't even protect one of you?"

"Well, that's an easy answer," She smiled softly, bringing their hands up to her mouth to kiss the back of his. "You don't. Roy is never far away from Thea enough for anything to happen to her, and I'm pretty sure that he's still scared of you enough to not let anything happen to me. And we have Digg and Lyla to turn to as well! And Sara, when she's in town. Well, all the Lances really, when you think about it. And I'm sure that Barry would be here in a flash (pun intended) if we need him."

He smiled at her gently, waiting for her to stop.

"You done?"

"Think so." She nodded.

"Good. Because I know all of that." He reached out a finger to tap lightly at her temple. "In here, I know that. I'm just having one of those days, you know?"

"'Kay." She nodded slightly, leaning forward to accept the kiss that he offered. "But I'd like to go on record and say that both Thea and I can hold our own. Well, Thea more so than me, but I'm getting there. I just lack the grace, according to Digg. Which is weird because I never thought you had to be graceful to fight…" She rolled her eyes to herself. "And I'm talking again. Why am I always talking?"

He kissed her again, even though that had yet to shut her up completely.

"I'm going to be late for work if you keep that up." She laughed against his mouth. She tried, albeit weakly, to wiggle away from him, but he caught her by the waist, holding her in place with his touch rather than his strength.

"So be late." He smiled against her mouth - he always would, whether he wanted to or not. The damn woman was infectious. "I doubt your boss would mind. In fact, I'm pretty sure he recommends it."

"Nope." She laughed, pushing him away. "I'm not going to be late. It's bad enough that I'm already the EA-who-sleeps-with-her-boss cliché. I will not be late." He grumbled slightly, but let her go. It was only for a while though, he'd never be able to bring himself to leave her for too long.

"There's my Oliver." She smiled, scratching her nails through the short fuzz on one of his cheeks.

"'Your' Oliver?" He repeated back to her. Not that he had a problem with that, mind. He'd waited so long to hear it; he'd been her's for a very long time.

"Yup. My Oliver." She nodded. "The one who loves the lazy mornings after a night of jumping off roof tops."

"Didn't jump off any roof tops last night." He pointed out. She bopped him lightly with her pillow. He let her.

"Shower's mine first!" She declared, throwing back the blanket and reaching for his dressing gown, hung from the bed post. He never bothered to wear it, especially on the nights that she stayed at the mansion, but it was always close at hand, so she'd started stealing it. His only complaint was of how much of her it covered.

"I don't understand why you think showering separately is quicker, 'Licity." He mock complained, leaning back down on one arm as she shrugged the dressing gown on. "Logically, it makes more sense for it to be quicker." She glared at him from over her shoulder, and he smiled at her cheekily.

"Because you don't have to be at work in an hour, and I do. So it's not really quicker, Oliver!" She grinned at him. "It's payback!" And she ducked into the adjoining bathroom before he could open his mouth.

He'd given in and pulled on a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms on, and was paying just a tad more effort into suit-colour-choosing than he normally might have. Well, payback deserved payback after all, and really all he had to choose from was Black, Black, Black, Grey, Black, a dark blue one she really did not like (or, technically, she didn't like standing next to him while he was wearing it, given the photo Lance had taken, where she looked "I'm-about-to-puke-green,-not-sexy-Arrow-green-even-though-that-would-not-be-a-very-good-sign-if-someone-did-turn-Arrow-green." standing pale next to him in the dark suit. As far as she knew, Lance deleted the photo as soon as she said she didn't like it. In reality, Oliver had two copies; one on his computer, and a non-hackable printed copy in one of his draws) and another Black. There was a polystyrene White one in there somewhere too, he was sure, that he refused to wear. He ended up with on of the Grey ones - her favourite, in for a penny and all that - hung over the mirror, waiting until she got out of the damn shower.

(Fun fact: She was in said shower for less than ten minutes, but Oliver couldn't see her during that time, so it magically decided to feel like hours)

He kissed her again when she came out of the cloudy room, attempted to steal her towel and kissing her again to apologize, then kissed her again because she was curling her nose up at him while she laughed and she was too adorable not to kiss.

"Oliver?" She called quietly from the bathroom door, and he stuck his head out from behind the glass window immediately to check he hadn't imagined it. Since when was Felicity Smoak ever that quiet?

"What's wrong, Love?" He asked gently.

"You're okay, right?" She asked just as quietly as before, wrapping her arms around her chest tighter. "You've been… gloomier recently. I just… was that because of Thea being a part of the secret and you're worried about her...or did I-"

"You think you did something wrong?" He reached for her, leaving water marks on her cheeks and wetting strands of finally dry hair. "Hey, you haven't done anything wrong. I don't lie to you, remember?" She nodded slowly, her eyes staring holes in the floor, avoiding all of him.

"Felicity?" He nudged her chin up, meeting her blue eyes stubbornly. "I love you. So stop worrying, please. Okay? Whatever doubt is eating away at your mind right now? Get rid of it. Because I'm not going anywhere unless you want me to."

"That's never going to happen." She smiled at him, like suddenly nothing was bothering her. She lifted up to kiss him, brushing her lips over his so softly he could have dreamed it, if his dreams were ever so pleasant, and then it didn't seem to matter to Oliver that she hadn't said those three words back yet, because the proof was so much better than confirmation. Even if confirmation might have been nice, every now and again. "Oliver…."

"Umhm." He raised a wet hand to touch her cheek lightly, drawing her closer without leaving wet patches on her dress.

"You're in the shower." She pointed out, pulling away when his hand brushed the ends of her hair.

"And you're not." He retorted. "Do you see the issue with this situation yet, or are we going to have to resort to more obvious, Felicity level Freudian slips?"

"Oliver!" She stepped further away from him. "At the risk of repeating myself, I have to get to work."

"You work for me." He repeated, as if she hadn't quite got that yet. "Who's going to fire you if I'm the one making you late."

"It's not the reciprocations that I'm worried about. It's the principle of it Oliver." And she stepped even further back, because of course he was laughing at her.

"God you're adorable." He smiled, drawing her back into him by the bare skin of her arms, just under the sleeves of her dress. "Is that why you don't want people outside of our team knowing? Not because people will try to kill you, but because they were right when they started telling those rumours?"

"They weren't right when they started telling those rumours." She muttered, crossing her arms in front of her as she pouted slightly. "Back then, all the rumours were supposed to do was damage my career. They didn't expect them to be one giant kick in the stomach, waving what I couldn't have in my face."

"'Licity…." He sighed, something akin to guilt pulling sharply in his gut as he set his forehead against her, using one finally dry hand to push her hair from her face. "I could talk to them if you wanted me to. All you have to do is give me the names."

"It doesn't matter." She shrugged, but very stubbornly kept their heads together, her eyes on his, noses aligned. "I mean, it's not like that will make it any better - If I learnt one thing from playground bullies it was that telling the superiors only just made it worse. It's not like we can do anything other than confirm it, so…."

"Hey." Oliver hissed, but he still forced the sound to come out gently. "You are so much more than that, Okay? Felicity, it doesn't matter to me, what they think. But it matters to you, obviously. So we can work with that, we can be more careful, do better to make sure that they don't see it." He tapped his index finger under her chin. "Which, regrettably, probably starts with you getting to work on time…"

"I thought the main issue here was that I had to get to work." She asked, a hint of classic Felicity cheek peeking through her voice.

"No, the issue was that weren't in the shower with me." He said back, smiling back just as cheekily. But when he let her arms go, and kissed her forehead tenderly, the only emotion discernible in his eyes was complete and utter adoration. "But I'm trying to do the right thing here and help you to understand that the opinions of idiotic QC workers doesn't change how I feel about you. No one will. And if that means that I'll have to miss you for just a couple of hour more a day to get you to see that… Well, you'll always be more important to me."

"Oliver," She sighed as she kissed him , gasping when she missed her breath because of it. "It's one hour. You're not going to miss me that much."

"I always miss you." He pointed out, kissing her back fleetingly. "And as much as I want to keep you here for as long as possible, you might want to get going. We don't want you to be late."

She rolled her eyes, but left without another word, grabbing a towel off of the rack on her way out to dry the wet hand prints that he'd left on her skin. Oliver sighed again as he heard the door to his room close after her, listening to her call out her goodbye as he wondered just how much hell she'd give him for firing the main perpetrators.

By the time he convinced himself to turn off the warm water of his shower, he decided against it almost immediately, recalling the last time he'd overstepped his mark in a similar way. That had not a pretty week.

He kept his back to the mirror, scrubbing a towel over his hair, shaking away the water droplets that tiggled at the back of his neck. The soft material of the towels Felicity insisted on using snagged on the rough skin of his scars, but he was more than used to it. So when he turned, his mind in other places as he rose one hand to wipe the steam on the mirror, he froze. Snorting to himself as he wondered just how much more adorable the woman could get, Oliver retrieved his phone and snapped the picture before the cold air could brush away the scrawl written in the condensation.

The "I love you" scribbled in the water vapour would fade, but she'd finally said the words, as indirectly as possible, but if he could get her to write the words, he could get her to say them, right?

So he send the picture, returning the sentiment in the text attached, and silently lamented letting her go at all.

* * *

Ehem. So, First Published Arrow fanfic. Well published here... there's a few on my tumblr.  
So, please excuse me it its totally terrible.  
Oh, and I forgot to add: The phrase Oliver says in Russian translates to 'My Love' in English. According to the internet. Unfortunately, I don't speak Russian.  
Love to you all.  
IIHH xxx


End file.
